Today the Adventure Caravans chartered a bus to take us around the Cabot Trail, again. We went the opposite direction from the other day so we got a different perspective of views but we also made a few stops that we skipped the first time and gained some knowledge of the area from our guide. The four main industries are fishing for lobster (in May and June only) and snow crab (until you reach your limit), farming, forestry and tourism. There used to be 12 coal mines and a steel mill but those are all closed now. The Cape Breton population is about 130,000 and most speak French/Acadian and some Gaelic so signage is in English and one of the other two languages.
We stopped at St. Peters Church in Cheticamp. It is 125 years old, will seat 2,000 people and has amazing acoustics that I got to demonstrate by singing ‘Amazing Grace’ solo. The 1904 Casavanti Brothers pipe organ is still in use today.
Our next stop was at Flo’s Hooked Rugs. Inside was a museum called Les Trois Pigno (pronounced La Traw ee-on) and means The Three Gables. Marguerite Gallant donated the majority of the items in the museum and Elizabeth LeFort was the artist in hooked rugs and tapestry. She began hooking at the age of 15 and was still doing it two months before she died at the age of 91.
Her hooked pieces are works of art. She has done pieces of many of the worlds important men like presidents and prime ministers, astronauts and sports players. She has pieces hanging in the Vatican and White House and is know throughout the world for her intricate work all hooked with yarn that she died herself. Some pieces have over 500 colors of yarn that she made herself.
Later in the day we had ice cream while wading in the Atlantic Ocean on Ingonish Beach. Today there was no wind and gentle swells of waves unlike two days ago.
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